Richard Serra Lines

Richard Serra is an American installation artist who uses large sheets of steel to create warped walls. As a steel mill worker in college, he was influenced by the material and began to incorporate it into his work. His large walls slant at different angles with some angling over you while others angle away from you. Some walls are also close together and other areas are more open. His walls are meant to challenge a person's sense of personal space. We have talked about space as something being close or far away from us throughout this school year. This project however, we talked more about our own personal space and how those walls might change our perceptions of space.

Because I didn't have this grade when they were in kindergarten and first grade, I haven't done any solid line projects with them. I like how when you can see Serra's work from above, it looks like a line design. I used this as influence to teach our artists about some different kinds of lines.

After learning about Richard Serra, students created two sketches of line designs. After settling on their stronger design and getting it okay'd by me, they transferred it to a large sheet of grey paper.

The 2nd and 3rd day of this project were spent adding “lines/walls” to our artwork. We did this by cutting small slits into brown strips of paper. Students then folded the tabs those slits created back and forth so that it kind of looked like a zipper. Lastly, they put a dot of glue on the bottom of each tab and glued the strip down onto their line drawings.

I'm blown away by these! This is one of my favorite projects this year!